In St. Louis, Celebrating a Team Long Gone

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The Browns’ president Bill Veeck, at center in 1952, sent up the 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to bat in a game in ’51.CreditCreditAssociated Press

By Hillel Kuttler

Oct. 19, 2013

In the corridor of a St. Louis-area hotel last month, Sam Cash waited in line for autographs from members of the long-departed major league team known as the Browns. The signatures secured, he then sat at an adjacent table with his own Browns display that featured team trivia, a team time line and photographs of his favorite Browns player, Bud Thomas. Fans and several former Browns took a look.

Leaders of the Browns group — founded in 1984 on the 40th anniversary of the team’s first and only appearance in the World Series — know that Cash is an exception, that the clock is undoubtedly ticking on a 330-member organization dedicated to a sad-sack franchise that left town six decades ago to become the Baltimore Orioles.

If it is any comfort, they are not alone in confronting the somber passage of time. The Boston Braves Historical Association, for example, has 300 dues-paying members who are loyal to a National League franchise that bolted to Milwaukee (and later to Atlanta) 60 years ago but has not hosted a similar reunion since 2008 because of the diminishing numbers of living players, said Jonathan Fine, the group’s secretary-general.

In July, the Philadelphia Athletics Historical Society (the team moved to Kansas City, Mo., in 1954 and then to Oakland, Calif., in 1968) left its rented storefront in suburban Hatboro, Pa. The organization’s executive director, Ernie Montella, said he had no choice but to close the shop for financial reasons.

Membership stands at about 800 and he publishes six Athletics newsletters annually, but “if we get through next year, we’ll be lucky,” Montella said.

In all, 6 of the 16 major league teams relocated between 1952 and 1960; for now, at least, they all have fan clubs that unite people in history’s nostalgic embrace.

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Sam Cash got interested in the Browns doing a third-grade report.CreditCash Family

But the enduring loyalty of the Browns historical society is particularly striking because St. Louis remains a thriving baseball town dressed in Cardinals red. The Cardinals have won 11 World Series championships, more than any other National League team, and are four wins from a 12th. In many ways, they are a Midwest version of the Yankees.

The Browns? In their 52 seasons in St. Louis, they finished last or next to last place 21 times, compiled an overall winning percentage of .433 and won that one pennant, in 1944, which, because it was a war year, has an asterisk of sorts attached. Who would want to remember them, except fans who just cannot bring themselves to forget.

Actually, all these years later, the team is best recalled for the antics that baseball’s great maverick, Bill Veeck, dreamed up when he owned the team in the early 1950s — including sending up the 3-foot-7 Eddie Gaedel to bat in a regular-season game and letting fans use placards to vote on in-game strategy.

Veeck did his best to drum up interest, but in general, when the Browns played, people stayed away. In only four seasons did they exceed the American League’s average attendance; in 1935, a mere 80,922 spectators showed up.

“We had more at the luncheon than at the ballpark,” Don Larsen said, joking, over the telephone this month as he talked about being the featured speaker at the Sept. 26 event. His Browns credentials are right there in the record book, which shows that in his rookie year in the major leagues, in 1953, he went 7-12 for the team in its last season in St. Louis.

Three years later, of course, as a Yankee, he would become the first, and only, pitcher to throw a perfect game in the World Series. Every baseball fan knows that, but who remembers Larsen was once a Brown, except for the stalwart members of the historical society?

In fact, Browns history is as about as far below the radar as possible. Team and individual records in the Baltimore Orioles’ media guide begin with 1954, not with their Browns antecedents. There are no Browns statues to be found, no retired uniform numbers. As far as Baltimore is concerned, even outfielder Ken Williams, who socked 39 homers and drove in 155 runs for 1922’s best Browns club (the team’s 93-61 record clinched only second place), and the Hall of Fame first baseman George Sisler, who hit .420 that year, did not exist.

But in St. Louis, the historical society carries the torch and means to keep it lighted.

The group’s president, Bill Rogers, 76, said he was working to attract new, younger members, but that will not be an easy task. Browns memorabilia is on display at Scottrade Center, the home of the St. Louis Blues. That exhibition, in turn, is part of the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame, which is planning to build a stand-alone building, and the Cardinals are constructing a museum, too. Rogers said he hoped Browns history would be on exhibit at both new locations.

For now, the Browns group seems to be holding on. With no paid staff, its revenue — members pay $30 in annual dues — goes toward maintaining several Web sites, covering travel expenses for old Browns attending the St. Louis luncheons and publishing a semiannual newsletter.

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Bill Rogers, center, the president of the St. Louis Browns Historical Society and Fan Club, with former Browns players Roy Sievers, left, and Ed Mickelson.CreditSt. Louis Browns Historical Society

The organization also has allies in the broadcaster Bob Costas, who began his professional career in St. Louis, has a home in the city and has contributed some of the money for the current arena display, and the Cardinals’ owner, William DeWitt Jr., whose uniform as a 1951 Browns batboy was worn by Gaedel.

Costas said there was a poignancy to the Browns fans who continued to remain loyal to their memories all these years later, even though the whole Browns concept is an “ever-shrinking fraternity, both in terms of fans and Brownies.”

“No one’s saying that a Browns reunion is like a Green Bay Packers reunion — a history of triumph — but there’s more to enjoying baseball than winning or losing,” Costas said.

Rogers has asked Costas to be the keynote speaker at next year’s luncheon. In 2010, the keynote speaker was Tommy Lasorda, who pitched briefly for the Browns during spring training in 1953. The group also plans to recruit the country singer Roy Clark, who turned down a chance to try out for the Browns in 1951. Each passing year also means a decline in the players’ ranks. In September, Larsen and Thomas were joined only by Roy Sievers, who earned the A.L. Rookie of the Year award in 1949 as a Brown; Ed Mickelson; J. W. Porter; and Don Lenhardt.

Ned Garver, who in 1951 won 20 games and hit .305 for the last-place Browns, attended past reunions, but he was too ill to come this time and participated instead via telephone from his Ohio home. From a nursing home in Michigan, Don Lund addressed attendees by phone, too. Chuck Stevens, at 95 the oldest ex-Brown, was planning to fly in from California, but ultimately decided against it.

Only 24 former Browns are alive today, Rogers said. At the luncheon, Larsen, 84, his cane leaning against his leg, sat on a stage and took questions about his life as a Brown.

“I was pleased for it to be my first baseball club.” Larsen said by telephone. “ We didn’t have a great ball club, but we tried.” He plans to be back at the luncheon in 2014.

Back home in Cole Camp, Mo., 10-year-old Sam Cash pronounced himself pleased to have made the 200-mile drive with his father and grandparents for the luncheon. His grandfather, Jim Cash, has long played golf with Thomas, a Browns shortstop in 1951. Sam got to know Thomas and interviewed him for a third-grade report on the Browns. From there, his fascination with the team began to take hold. As he was being interviewed on the telephone, his grandmother, Shirley Cash, got on the line. She grew up on a farm listening to Browns broadcasts with her father and because of her grandson has decided she would like to join the Browns’ historical society. And soon.

“It’s getting so near the end of the Browns who are alive,” she said.

Correction:

An article in some editions on Sunday about the St. Louis Browns Historical Society misstated the number of years between Don Larsen’s 7-12 rookie season in 1953 with the Browns and his perfect game in the World Series with the Yankees. It was three, not 13.